April 10, Pozirk. Police have summoned family members of inmates held in Belarusian prisons for questioning after the Committee for State Security (KGB) announced an “extremist group” designation for 22 online chats that they used for communication, MAYDAY.TEAM says on Telegram.
Law enforcers from Minsk reportedly contacted some of the chat administrators, requesting information about certain contacts without demanding the deletion of the chats.
However, rights defenders noted the deletion of the Antoškina chat on the Viber messaging app, which connected more than 1,000 relatives of convicts serving sentences at Penal Colony No 4 Homiel, warning that its members may now face criminal charges.
Anyone seeking information or support about relatives held in pretrial detention in Belarus may now be persecuted, as such involvement could be used as grounds for criminal charges, warned Leanid Marozaŭ, legal adviser to Belarusian opposition leader Śviatłana Cichanoŭskaja.
Belarusian authorities are deliberately suppressing not only political activism but also any form of solidarity by criminalizing it, he noted.
Following the crackdown on the 2020 postelection protests, authorities in Belarus have equated criticism, solidarity, advocacy, the free media and free expression to extremism and terrorism.
